EuroGamer - Coming Attractions - RPGs

Looking ahead at the coming gaming year, Eurogamer has a roundup of some of 2008's RPGs. It's a little heavy on the spiky-haired variety but Fallout 3, Fable 2 and Rise of the Argonauts make it in:

New from Codemasters comes an action RPG featuring Jason and his magic fleece and a better frame rate than the Harryhausen film. Playing as the king of Iolchis himself you get to fight alongside great heroes of mythology such as Atalanta, Achilles and Hercules (not played by Sorbo, sadly).
As lead designer Charley Price told us last year, Rise of the Argonauts is all about storyline, character development and decision-making. There's not too much menu fiddling and inventory management, basically.
We're also promised "real-time, lethal combat unlike any you've ever seen in an RPG". No more stabbing enemies 20 times before they fall over; stick a sword through someone's heart and the consequences will be as immediate as you'd expect in real life. Or Lewisham.
Rise of the Argonauts is out later this year on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

Some of the handheld games are already out in the US and *not* worth playing:
- Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker - better off playing Pokemon (or even Spectrobes), this is in my upcoming 'Whole Game in My Hand.
- Final Fantasy I & II - I suggested getting the actual combined "Final Fantasy I & II" for the GBA rather than the mediocre port to the PSP which costs full price for each game, but still fixed nothing of the original FF2 issues.

Even though it will be free, what about Keep on the Borderlands? Surely you can't discount Shining Ted's efforts to properly recreate one of the best D&D modules out there.

RPGs are pretty much dead at this point. If Mass Effect can pass for an RPG and bioshock can be called an RPG hybrid even though it has no inventory screen, then it won't be long before they start calling Mario and Sonic RPGs as well…

Originally Posted by Boilerplate
Even though it will be free, what about Keep on the Borderlands? Surely you can't discount Shining Ted's efforts to properly recreate one of the best D&D modules out there.

RPGs are pretty much dead at this point. If Mass Effect can pass for an RPG and bioshock can be called an RPG hybrid even though it has no inventory screen, then it won't be long before they start calling Mario and Sonic RPGs as well…

Oops, that's right, Bioware is making a Sonic RPG

What a wonderful time to be an RPG'er.

I would say with Witcher, Mask of the Betrayer, Gothic 3, Eschalon, and the upcoming indies and hopefully dragon age, the RPG genre is going stronger than it has in many years.